International Business Machines Corporation
Cache line cleanup for prevention of side channel attack

Abstract:

Examples of techniques for cache line cleanup for prevention of side channel attack are described herein. An aspect includes determining, by a rollback control unit, a start of a speculative execution in a computer processor. Another aspect includes setting a field in a speculative buffer of the computer processor based on a load or a store to a cache line of a cache being performed by the speculative execution. Another aspect includes determining a failure of the speculative execution. Another aspect includes, based on the failure of the speculative execution, traversing the speculative buffer to determine the set field and performing a cleanup of the cache line based on the set field in the speculative buffer.